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Huawei’s 2013 flagship phone, the P2, is official; why does it have 2012 specs?

Huawei has just announced their latest creation, the ultra slim (8.4 mm) Ascend P2. We’re a bit confused by the device since it doesn’t exactly have “bleeding edge” specifications. We’re looking at a quad core 1.5 GHz processor, 1 GB of RAM, 13 megapixel camera, and a massive 2,420 mAh battery. It’ll run Android 4.1 Jelly Bean with version 1.5 of Huawei’s Emotion UI on top.

Here’s where things get weird. The P2 will have a 4.7 inch 720p screen. That’s just … weird. We used to think that the P series was considered a sort of flagship line, but it looks like that’s no longer the case. It’s not as if Huawei doesn’t have a flagship, they announced the Ascend D2 at CES last month, and that thing has a 5 inch 1080p screen. So does that mean the P2 is a “midrange” device?

We need to get some hands-on time with this phone and ask Huawei a few questions, but here’s some more information that’s been made official: The P2 will launch in France by the end of the second quarter (June). It’ll cost 399 EUR, which sounds like a steal, but we have a feeling that Samsung’s Galaxy S3 will come down to 400 EUR during roughly the same time.

Think about it for a second, Samsung is going to announce the GS4 in March, ship it in April, and then they’ll heavily discount the S3 in order to move excess inventory. Hell, Samsung will probably even announce a GS3 Plus in 2014 just to milk the design language a bit further.

This writer hates to sound cynical, but he was expecting a bit more from Huawei. The company needs to step up their design game, they need to stop announcing phones that aren’t going to ship for another four to five months, and they need to figure out a way to make themselves stand out from the other Chinese players like Lenovo and ZTE.